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I have chosen three areas of my life that I will commit to focusing on and strengthening in the coming twelve months.

Service

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Jesus Christ

The only way that I can figure out to show love is through service. Service to my wife. Service to my family. Service to my neighbor. I cannot just say “be warm, be filled.” I have to do.

Non-Exclusive

I could say inclusive, but that does not quite capture the feeling of what I am after. It is not that I am trying to include people in my sphere of influence. It is that I do not want to exclude them by the thoughtless application of ideology or dogma. How will over half of the country see Christ in me if I have alienated them with disparagement of their chosen president? If I am so strident in a political view that a demographic tunes me out how will they hear from me the message of the Hope of Christ? Paul was all things to all people so that he might save some. I have principles I will not abandon. But if they were not ones espoused by Christ I need to champion them gently and with caution.

Patience

Patience comes before gentleness, which is one of my old words. It is also one that I still desperately need to show those around me. Maybe gentleness will come easier if I do not become impatient in the first place. I guess I am in for a year of gridlock and long queues!

I have chosen three areas of my life that I will commit to focusing on and strengthening in the coming twelve months.

Self-Effacing

I will choose to not have to be right. My being right only feeds my ego and sense of self importance. No one else is served by me insuring that they know how much better my way or knowledge is than theirs. I know how destructive this attitude can be and I refuse to allow it to hurt those around me and cripple my relationships.

Broken

I will choose to remain broken before God. It is a good place to be, but a horrible place to get to. I will try to not get to the place where He has to take me there again.

I have chosen three areas of my life that I will commit to focusing on and strengthening in the coming twelve months.

Gentle
Again I am cheating a little, but I am going to re-up on Gentle. I do not think I am anywhere near where I want to be with this one and I still feel very strongly about making it a priority and focus in my life. As a man I struggle with this every day. I want to win. I need to do whatever it takes to win. Except that those around me do not need me to win. They need me to be understanding of their needs and gentle with their feelings. See 2013 words for more info.

Friendships
I am going to concentrate on expanding my circle of friends and strengthening those I already have. Friends are the only thing that can survive any catastrophe. No flood, tornado, or hurricane can separate me from my friends. Only death can do that. And death’s separation is only temporary for those in Christ. It just sort of makes sense to invest in that which you can never lose does it not?

Introspective
I am going to continue to look into myself and be willing to change. I have learned a lot about myself in the last year. Some good, some not so good. I am determined to be a better man and that means looking honestly at myself and then being willing to change what is not good. I found myself with a choice a few weeks ago and choose poorly. I betrayed someone’s trust. No one ever would ever know it happened. But I did. My character is not what I thought it was. When faced with an option I caved. I cannot change the past but I can be honest with myself and refuse to commit the same mistake in the future.

I have chosen three areas of my life that I will commit to focusing on and strengthening in the coming twelve months.

Hospitable
Maybe I am cheating a little, but I am going to re-up on Hospitable. I do not think I am anywhere near where I want to be with this one and I still feel very strongly about making it a priority and focus in my life.

Gentle
I should be gentle in all my dealings. I am concerned the most in my dealings with my son. He responds well to gentleness. Unfortunately, haste and frustration and carelessness let me slip or more often, run screaming into harshness. Andre the Giant is remembered for being a gentle man. Perhaps because with great strength there is a great need for gentleness, but more likely there just is no need for harshness and only great strength is secure enough to realize it.

Active
This is corollary to last year’s Deliberate. I am going to continue to do things. In many senses I am rebuilding my life. I am not going to wait for it to pass me by. Last week I was two hours from home, but only three hours from a family member I had not seen in a year and a half. So at 11 PM I called and said, “See you by 2 AM.” I left the next day at 2 PM for the three hour trip home. But if I lose that person next week I can look back without regret.

As I begin a new year I will not make a commitment to keeping this blog up to date. But I have chosen three areas of my life that I will commit to focusing on and strengthening in the coming twelve months.

Generous
Close to twenty-five years ago an event occurred that has shaped my life ever since. I was in a car going to a weekend retreat in Northern Virginia. We stopped at a gas station and when the driver came back out from paying for the gas he also brought with him packs of gum for myself and the other male passenger and single roses for the two female passengers. This small act of generosity has forever followed, almost haunted me; a casual act, which he would probably not even remember has changed the way I live. That small kindness affected me more than most “major” events in my life.

Today as I look around and wonder what kind of person I most admire my mind is forced to return to that event. Those who are generous with their time, money, attention are those that I find most worthy of emulating. So, though I have tried to incorporate generosity into my life, this year I am committed to “do”.

Hospitable
I remember my Grandmother telling stories of how all of the neighborhood children spent so much time at her house and thinking how I wanted that to be my house when I grew up. I think of all the time that I spent as a college student along with hoards of others at certain youth leader couple’s house. Thirty years later their hospitality is still bearing fruit for them and others.

I have recently moved into a new home. I have an eleven year old boy. That is going to be my house.

Deliberate
My life is half over. Too often it has been marked by success or failure brought on only by circumstance. I am going to be deliberate in my actions and craft my life in spite of my circumstances.

It started with “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
and ended with “Kentucky Moon”.
And somewhere in between, my heart breaking
Like the light over the Smokeys,
I felt the sounds and scents burning my cares away like the
misty tendrils wreathing the peaks.
And as the lite weight of contentment
settled down over me, I recalled that,
“knowing that the next round is just a breath away,
does not completely ruin brief, spectacular moments”.
And it was enough.

I went home last night
though I didn’t know it then.
I laughed and cried
and sang and praised
and reminisced of when.
I gathered up the shards of memory
as I drifted back.
I sifted through the years of history
and stuffed them in my pack.
Looking to the far horizon,
road stretching no less further than before;
Somehow my load sits lighter
as my steps stretch out once more.

In my youth I chased the Sun
And did not catch it.
In my ignorance I did not apprehend its worth
And knew it could not be mine.
In my foolishness I believed that lie
And let it go.
In my busyness it slowly set
And I did not notice the encroaching darkness.
In time it rose again
And I was o’rwhelmed by its brilliance.
But in my web of fences, and locks, and weak candles I was bound to the earth
And waited, wanting, knowing it would pass once again.